CHECKLIST:

You know what doesn't change in 20 years? The smell of eucalyptus. To some people, that soft, sweet green scent is the smell of massages and yoga classes. To me, it's teenage angst. To me, the smell of high school, the smell of nervousness, awkwardness, acne, hormones, the smell of being a teenager is all wrapped up in the smell of eucalyptus.

When I was 15, I packed up, left my home in New York, and moved to the Cate School, a small boarding school in the small town of Carpinteria. The "mesa," which would be called a "campus" in Connecticut or Massachusetts, is tucked into the hills just above this sleepy little surf town that few outside of Southern California have heard of.

Cate was hardly a typical high school. We had no football team, but we did have a lot of shaggy blond kids who surfed during free periods. The hallways of the English department had no walls because it never rained or snowed or reached temperatures less perfect than 68 degrees. The balcony of my dorm room (because, yes, my dorm room had a balcony) had a view of the Pacific. And eucalyptus trees were in abundance: lining the driveway, bordering the soccer field, filling our dorms at night with their intoxicating smell. If there is a more idyllic place to come of age, I don't know it.

But I haven't been a student at Cate for 20 years – and it was reunion time. As eager as I was to see old friends, I was also curious about "Carp," as students call the town.

Carp is a few cities south of Santa Barbara and borders Montecito, in one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the country (Oprah has a home there). But while Montecito – with its pruned hedges and expensive boutiques – had always been 1-percenter territory, Carp was not, with concentrations of Mexican immigrants, blue-collar workers and surfers.

A huge chunk of Carp's identity is surfing. And the town's surf shops are as much a draw for people like my friend Jason, who owns more boards than shoes, as they are for people like me — the frauds who don't surf but like to wear the clothes. The town's two surf shops — Rincon Designs, which makes its own boards on-site and A-Frame Surf, which is one of the few places in the area that offers surfing lessons — were thriving.

Carpinteria bills itself as having "the world's safest beach," meaning there is no undertow that will suck you in and drag you out to the middle of the Pacific. And while the beaches can get crowded, they never reach the packed-sardine levels of more famous Southern California towns. But I didn't come for the beach.

Now that I was back, I wanted to know if the town that had ushered in my growing up had grown up as well. I had heard that Carp had changed. Mention restaurants and any local will boast about the two fanciest places in town – Sly's, revered for its grilled artichokes, mouthwatering mussels marinière, and lively bar scene, and Zookers Cafe, which serves dishes like baby spinach salad, grilled salmon and other items you would expect to find in pleasant white-tablecloth restaurants the country over.

As a New Yorker, I live a short subway ride away from more fancy restaurants than I could eat at in a lifetime. What was more interesting to me, what I was craving, and what Carp does better than any town north of Oaxaca, is Mexican food. Mexican immigrants have been pouring into Carp since the 1800s. Add to that the fact that Carp is the avocado capital of the world (and the site of an annual event called the California Avocado Festival: Three Days of Peace, Love and Guacamole), and you have a recipe for some very fresh, very delicious Mexican fare.

On the advice of my friend Lisa, I started my Mexican food odyssey at a place called Beach Liquor, which is actually a bodega.

Feeling as though maybe I was being Punk'd, I drove past Starbucks, past Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, past cute little cafes serving cute little cafe food and pulled up in front of a nondescript Mexican market on Linden Avenue. I walked in and saw standard bodega offerings: dusty racks of chips, candy, nondescript junk food and rolls of lottery tickets. I would have walked right back out, but Lisa is never wrong about these things.

So I went to the deli counter in the back, and with great skepticism, ordered a breakfast burrito. Then something happened that made me realize this would not be my last meal at this nondescript little bodega: The man behind the counter started seeding and dicing a tomato. Moments later, he was doing the same thing to a jalapeno. Then an onion. And it dawned on me: this was my pico de gallo. In fact, nothing that went into my breakfast burrito came out of a jar. Not only were all the ingredients fresh, they also most likely came from a few miles down the road.

Next, he was scrambling my eggs to perfect fluffiness, sprinkling on shredded cheese to perfect meltiness, and folding the whole thing into a warmed tortilla. By the time he was wrapping the burrito in paper, my mouth was watering. I walked outside, found a seat on a nearby fire hydrant, and unwrapped my work of art. I watched the people down the block having breakfast at a cafe and as I savored every last bite, I couldn't help feeling a little smug.

The tricky part about a food odyssey in three days is that no matter how many people you ask for advice, and no matter how well intentioned those people are, they will send you to the wrong places. It's like asking a New Yorker for advice on what show to see: 9 out of 10 will send you to "The Book of Mormon." It's the rare local who will suggest a small-but-terrific, off-off-Broadway show that's just as good as "The Book of Mormon" but not as famous.

I wanted to eat at a Mexican place where actual Mexican people ate. I can get a pretty good approximation of Mexican food near my office in Manhattan. I wanted something muy autentico. I wanted off-off-Broadway.

People walk past Rincon Designs Surf Shop in Carpinteria. EMILY BERL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Traffic makes its way along Linden Avenue in Carpinteria. EMILY BERL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
A boy pulls a body board across the beach in Carpinteria. EMILY BERL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Students walk between classes at Cate School in Carpinteria. A 20-year high school reunion prompts a New Yorker's return to the city. EMILY BERL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
The pico de gallo is made fresh for a breakfast burrito at Beach Liquor in Carpinteria EMILY BERL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
A mural off Linden Avenue touts the small town of Carpinteria's biggest attraction. EMILY BERL, THE NEW YORK TIMES

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